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South Africa to Santa Barbara Day 21: Most and Least Surprising Results

Jul 01, 2010

What the didn't world see coming, what isn't a
surprise

Follow the 2010 World Cup with the UCSB men's and women's
soccer programs all tournament long on UCSBgauchos.com. "South
Africa to Santa Barbara: The Cup is Coming" will provide daily
commentary on the day's biggest storylines, featuring video
interviews with Gaucho soccer players and head coaches Tim Vom
Steeg and Paul Stumpf.

In the world of sports, hours upon hours are devoted to
predicting winners, analyzing who is the best and debating the
finer points of why the teams we are cheering for will be the last
standing.

Part of what makes following sports so thrilling though, is the
knowledge that when the players take to the pitch, court or pool,
the score is 0-0 and it becomes anyone's game to win. Sometimes the
outcome is exactly as predicted, but when teams don't perform as
predicted, we often witness some of the greatest and worst moments
in sports history.

At the 2010 World Cup, some teams are living up to expectations
and others are exceeding what the world thought they were capable
of. On the flip side, some teams have been shocking due to
incredibly underwhelming performances.

Speaking of underwhelming, two of the biggest shocks of the
World Cup to this point were the failures of both France and Italy
to advance out of group play. The two teams that battled in the
2006 World Cup title game earned just three points combined and
neither posted a win. Let's not even get into the French's
off-the-field antics.

While it's not surprising that a South American country would
advance to the quarterfinals, after all, who can claim to be
shocked that Brazil or Argentina have had strong performances? The
number of South American countries that have advanced, however, is
surprising. The fact that four (Brazil, Paraguay, Uruguay and
Argentina) of the eight teams remaining are not just from the same
continent, but also border each other, is not just shocking, it's
downright impressive.

It is a real possibility that there could be an all-South
American semifinals, which would mark the first time a World Cup
semifinal didn't include a European team. Now that would be
shocking!

The sides that have lived up to the hype include Brazil,
Netherlands and Germany. They may not be posting surprising
results, but they certainly are posting exciting ones. All three
teams won their groups and sailed through the second round with
convincing wins.

With eight matches remaining in the 2010 World Cup, there is
plenty of time for more surprises. Could Ghana become the first
African team to reach the semifinals, or even the title game? Will
there be a South American only semifinal? Will we have a first-time
winner in the Netherlands, Paraguay or Spain? That's the beauty of
sports, we will have to watch and see.

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Season tickets start at just $75 and include one ticket to all
home men's and women's regular season games and one College Cup All Session Pass. UCSB staff and faculty
can purchase their season tickets for a reduced rate of $50.